


The Fire of the Dove

by Mr_Customs_Man



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-05-01 00:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5185316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mr_Customs_Man/pseuds/Mr_Customs_Man
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orlais comes to believe that Lavellan is not just the Maker’s Herald, but Andraste herself trapped inside the body of a Dalish elf. They must set Her free and cleanse Her mortal body with fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fire of the Dove

“Herald, is it true that you are in a state of grace?”

Ellana licked her lips and tried to focus her bleary eyes on the masked woman before her. The golden fans that adorned her cape looked like butterfly wings and she wanted to pluck them. She tried to raise her hand, but it was heavy with chains. It was difficult to concentrate. Creators, why was it so difficult? The Empress had extended an invitation to a feast in her honor. Relations with Orlais had quickly soured in the year since Corypheus’s defeat. It would give them a chance to talk, to re-forge their alliance, but Ellana had never been one to control her temper. Bitter words were spoken. I gave you your throne and I can take it away, Ellana remembered saying. But the feast had been grand and the wine intoxicating and then her memory faded like so many wisps twisting into the green ether.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ellana croaked.

“You have stated a number of times that you are the Maker’s representative here on earth. I quote, ‘Why wouldn’t the human god pick me to be His Herald? I’m amazing. I’m the new Andraste.’”

Yes, she had said that. But there was something that wasn’t quite right about it. She hadn’t meant for it to be taken seriously.

The Inquisitor looked at the faces around her. A sea of clerics stared back, some bored, some smirking. At the head sat Empress Celene herself. “Is this a trial?” Ellana asked, noting the young Sister scribbling every word in the corner as her senses grew sharper.

“This is a test,” one of the clerics answered. “To see if you are truly the Bride Returned, the spirit of Andraste caged within the decaying corpse of a Dalish elf who died at the Temple of Sacred Ashes.”

“I’m not dead!” Ellana protested.

The looks she received spoke plainly: _You will be_ , she read in their expressions.

“I am the Inquisitor! I am the most powerful woman in the world! You would dare attack me?! The entire Inquisition would bear down upon you if you so much harm one hair on my head. The Divine herself will not stand for this!”

“The Divine is a mage,” another of the clerics snapped, anger twisting her features. “We do not recognize the authority of a _mage_.”

_We do not recognize the authority of an elf_ , their faces seemed to say.

“Harm is not our intention,” Celene broke through. “If it is true and you are Andraste trapped in a mortal body then it is our duty to set you free. I ask you again, Herald: are you in a state of grace?”

Ellana set her jaw. “No.”

The young Sister paused in her writing, looking between Ellana and Celene. A sharp glare from one of the clerics had her quickly ducking her head, and she scribbled something across the parchment. Not Ellana’s words, but the words the clerics’ wanted her to say.

“Let the record show,” the Empress announced. “That the Herald has admitted her true nature. Now that the Evil One is dead She seeks to leave the mortal world. The Council of Clerics have proven the Herald to be the Bride Returned. We must now do our duty and set Her free so that She might rejoin the Maker at His Side. Herald, your body will be cleansed by fire. You will see your Maker soon.”

* * *

The crowd surged outside her prison cell, thronging through the courtyard in hopes of catching a glimpse of Andraste as She returned to the Maker. Not that they knew it was a cell. They probably thought the Herald was luxuriating in the finest of apartments, preparing herself to receive her divine husband. What fools.

The cell door opened. Ellana didn’t bother to look up; it was only the guards, come to take her away. But no, these soft, hesitant footsteps were not the armored boots of a warrior.

Ellana lifted her head and saw Mother Giselle step into the room. “They want me to prepare you for death. Would you like me to record your last words?” she asked hesitantly.

“Why? I’m sure they’ll just change them anyway.”

“I will not let them. I will write and rewrite them a hundred, a thousand times, until everyone knows the injustice that has occurred here.”

“If you know this is wrong then why are you letting them do this?”

Mother Giselle gave a wry smile. “Do you think I could fight my way out of this castle? Out of Val Royeaux? I do what I can and leave the rest to the Maker.” She took another step forward. “I confess… I do not know how the Dalish prepare for… If you were Andrastian I would send for the Sacrament.”

“Don’t do anything,” Ellana breathed. A flash of memory pierced her mind, of a man taking her hand and showing her all the wonders of the Fade. “I don’t believe anymore.”

For a moment they said nothing, just stared at the floor. Then Ellana took a shallow breath, her words soft and dreamy. “My last words… My last words will be… Tell Celene she has lost the war. Tell her that she will be overthrown by a great victory.”

“You think the Inquisition will come to save you?”

Before Ellana could answer the sound of boots marching against the stone ground broke through silence. “So soon?” She asked, and could not help the way her voice cracked. Mother Giselle threw her arms around her, brushing back her hair as she whispered soothingly against her forehead.

“Be courageous, Herald. Your last hour approaches.”

She nodded, swallowing the tears before the guards could see them. They draped a cloak over her, covering the manacles that bound her feet together and led her outside.

Every step seemed to last forever, and yet it still was not long enough. The stake stood in the middle of the square, the faces of elves and humans staring up at her reverently, so convinced that what was about to happen was Good and Right. The guards helped her onto the platform, gently guiding her to the stake with a hand at her elbow. Ellana murmured a quick prayer – to the Maker, to the Dread Wolf, to the guards at her side, she didn’t know – “Please, don’t let me suffer too long.”

She was pressed against the stake, her hands tied behind it, and at this the crowd teetered. Why would Andraste need to be bound? Ellana heard a baby crying somewhere in that throng of people. She looked out and saw a pair of brown eyes. A young girl, an elf, no more than sixteen, stared back at her. The girl’s mouth fell open in horror, a silent scream that could not be voiced, and Ellana could see the dawning realization reflected back in those dark, beautiful eyes.

The first of the flames were the most painful. They licked at her cloak – revealing the manacles for only a brief second before they seared into her flesh and melted into her ankles – scorched her skin until the feeling ebbed away into raw numbness. Soon the pain was gone entirely and Ellana was floating somewhere inside her own mind, coughing and desperate to breathe. The smoke clung thickly to her throat, slithering its way down her lungs. She gasped, and stared wildly up at the sky, desperate to see just a bit of blue through the haze of smoke. But it was green instead.

* * *

The crowd watched in horror as the flames climbed higher and higher, engulfing their Herald completely. They could see the black outline of her body collapsing as the meat of her flesh burned and twisted. No one said a word. There was only silence until hoarse cry erupted from the crowd.

“You have killed a saint!” screamed the elf girl.

The crowd rallied behind her.

They surged through the castle, a thousand strong, armed with handaxes and pitchforks and whatever weapons they happened to loot from the bodies of dead guards. The soldiers were not prepared for such an attack and fell like a drowning man slipping beneath the ocean waves.

Empress Celene sat at her desk, quickly writing down her final thoughts as an axe embedded itself again and again into her door, splintering the wood, the screams of a bloody battle wafting up from the courtyard to filter into her gilded room. _Our Maker is swift to receive the blood of innocents_ , she wrote just as the door crashed down and there stood the elf girl with vengeance in her eyes and for a moment Celene was unsure of whom she was looking at: Ellana or Briala? But no, they were both dead, and soon she will be too as she watched the axe swing down towards her neck.

_You were greatly blessed when the Word of the Maker steeped you in the fire of the dove._


End file.
